Beauty & Belief

I had been interviewed for an article about our Mission in South Africa. I had spent the last 26 months fundraising to build what is to be called a ‘Centre of Hope’ for the Township people in Mossell Bay. My sister and brother-in-law pastor a church there, I had visited the township in October 2012 and together with another Pastor from their church who runs a mission called Growing Hope they have now planted 100 gardens to help feed the people on the township of which sadly many are suffering with HIV and Aids. Through the generosity of friends who purchased my little hearts and various other bits and pieces  and various speaking engagements we have managed to achieve our goal of raising £3000 to help see what I like to call ‘my God given dream’ come to fruition. Later that day I was asked what is 'Beauty & Belief'  all about?

I guess the seed was sown after I wrote my book 'On Earth as it is in Heaven'. Being honest if someone had told me ten years ago that I was going to write and publish a book I would have told them they must be mad, not possible! But the thought would not go away, it became so consuming that when I had friends over for a meal for some reason I even blurted it out that I was going to write a book! ‘What are you going to write about?’ they asked excitedly. Well I got all embarrassed then and had to confess I really didn’t know! But to my amazement actually speaking it out somehow brought a whole new dimension to it. Every week if it wasn’t my husband it was my friends asking 'When are you going to start your book?' ‘I don’t know’ I kept replying. Then suddenly it happened, it was then I got what I can only call the 'power punch'. I actually had this heavenly encounter, it completely blew me away! But I just knew then I had to get on with it. Hence by a series of events 3 years later the book was written and published and on 5^th November. I gave the first copy to my hubby for his birthday in 2010. 
 

It has proved to be a life changing event. It has made me realize we are capable of so much more than we expect. Hence the launch of my mission: Beauty and Belief. My book had stirred my passion, it had inspired me to believe that if we are prepared to look beyond our limitations we can exceed way past our expectations.

Talking of expectations, at that time my daughter was studying at 6^th form, she seemed quite overwhelmed and it all got a bit stressful. Talking with some of her friends they didn’t seem too happy either, so coming from a beauty business background I felt it laid on my heart to try to do something to help them, especially as that time in my own life had been so difficult. I felt they needed some inspiration. However trying to inspire a group of stressed out teenage girls when they were in the middle of exams proved no easy feat, having the pamper sessions helped but on the subject of life relationships and family values they all had different thoughts and when it came to the subject of themselves it was like a bomb went off! Amongst the tears I discovered they did not seem to have a lot of good things to say about themselves. Thankfully by the end of the session we discovered there is a big difference between how you see yourselves and how others see you. There is also a big difference between what you believe is true and what the actual truth is. 

Looking at my own life I have to admit one of the hardest times was from the age of 18 up until I met my husband. My life seemed to change so much and each change seemed to bring about a new set of challenges. We all have different seasons in life and let’s face it, there are times in most of our lives when we distinctly don’t like it, unfortunately if we do not deal with these situations they will move on and you could end up disliking yourself. 

People are not always what they seem or how they look. Some of us may look pretty good on the outside but inside feel pretty bad. Sometimes we allow our minds to play tricks on us and we become deceived. If we allow ourselves to believe what we think is true but actually is not the truth we can lose our true value. Hence our minds come out of line with our hearts and then our bodies eventually suffer. The secret is we need to learn to train our minds not drain our minds and overcome the negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Everybody will have times where they do not feel truly valuable. It happens the whole world over and my mission is to try to inspire people to believe that they are of value, to value their life and feel good about themselves. Why? Because whatever you do you have to live with yourself. You cannot get away from yourself.  I believe if you can learn to love the skin you are in you will gain the feel-good factor and become much better. 

Try to focus on what is good about yourself and treat yourself well.  We all want to be liked and can easily get offended when people are rude or unkind, but do we offend ourselves? How do you think about yourself?  How do you see yourself? This may seem a totally different language to you, but I believe it is important and it is relevant. How many of you have been taught as children to be nice and don’t be unkind or say nasty things, but do you say them of yourself? Do you beat yourself up? Are you hard on yourself? If we want our best life sometimes we should really lighten up and just laugh at ourselves. So let’s try to start thinking a different way. When you wake up in the morning think about what you have to be thankful for. Read some inspirational texts or tweets to get yourself motivated. Sing as you shower and when you look in the mirror focus on what you like about yourself rather than what you dislike.

Did you know that stress is one of the main problems in the UK?  Did you know that most of what you worry about never happens? Do you worry about what other people think of you?

They say you are the company you keep. Most of us will have 5 main people around us. Are these positive people or negative people? Do they make you feel good about yourself or bad about yourself? While you need to be there for people you need to balance how much time you spend with people who make you feel bad or sad and those who make you feel happy and glad. Balance is very important. 

To keep it simple we all have 2 sides to us. You have 2 thought patterns. What is your train of thoughts? Do you focus on the positive or the negative? One side of you can drain you the other side of you can train you. We need to stop draining our minds and start training our minds. There are things about you that are nice. You need to speak them out while the bad thoughts you get you need to hold back on, shut them out. Every organ in your body is connected what your ear hears travels down into your inner being. If it is good thought it will give you a sense of well-being, which in turn will help you to feel good about yourself.

Your thoughts are powerful. Mind can overcome matter. Keep feeding your mind positive thoughts and stop feeding your mind negative thoughts and in a very short time you will feel much better.

The bible says 'You are fearfully and wonderfully made'

It is a best selling book of all time, so that says a lot.

Think about it

You will find your Beauty when you Believe. 

God bless you

Yours Truly

Julie

Other inspirations can be read in ‘On Earth as it is in Heaven’ by Julie Prentice.

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